


make sure you kiss your knuckles

by SongOfWizardry



Series: when i sing, you sing harmonies [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Empire Siblings - Freeform, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Thoreau Lionett Being an Asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25653379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongOfWizardry/pseuds/SongOfWizardry
Summary: beau had been distantly aware of the fact that turning her phone off and tossing it underneath her bed might lead to a dozen missed calls and her friends worrying, but—it hadn't seemed important, in the moment. which is how she's now ended up with caleb, outside her door, refusing to go the fuck away.[or: the empire siblings and the aftermath of punching shit to deal with emotions]
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast
Series: when i sing, you sing harmonies [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1898512
Comments: 21
Kudos: 204





	make sure you kiss your knuckles

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings: implied self-harm, implied parental abuse, and some vague descriptors of panic

It’s Caleb who comes to find her. She’d been distantly aware of the fact that turning her phone off and tossing it underneath her bed might lead to her friends y’know, worrying, but in the moment it hadn’t seemed very important. So when there’s a knock on her door and Caleb’s voice calls, “Beauregard?” she is, for a moment, surprised. Then the cause-and-effect chain clicks through, and she realises that nope, this fucking group is really predictable.

“Fuck off, Caleb,” she calls back. Her throat hurts a bit, and she hopes he can’t hear that her voice is a little hoarse.

“Ah, yeah, can’t do that, sorry. Can you let me in?” She doesn’t respond, and after a moment, Caleb says, “Beauregard, Veth is downstairs, she can pick the lock if I ask her to.”

Beau sighs, lets her head fall back against the wall with an audible _thump_. There’s a steady headache building behind her eyes now, and it’s almost nice, a counterpoint to the throbbing in her knuckles. “Well, fuck her too, then,” she mutters, but before she can think too hard about it – because she _really_ doesn’t want Veth breaking the lock to her room – she pulls herself to her feet, unlocks the door, and pulls it open. There’s a split second where she can see Caleb taking in the mess – of her, of her bruised hands, of the pillows and books strewn across her floor – and his too-damn-fast brain whirring, but thankfully, he doesn’t say anything, just steps past her into the room and shuts the door. After a moment of standing there, looking awkwardly at each other, Beau gives in and flops onto the floor, where she’d been before Caleb so rudely interrupted her. Caleb follows suit after a few seconds, settling himself, cross-legged, in front of her.

Beau waits for the questions. But Caleb just opens his satchel, pulls out a water bottle, opens it, and hands it to her. She’s too confused to do anything else, so she takes it, and drinks. (Somewhere, some part of her brain that’s mostly still offline points out that her hands are shaky and Caleb will notice. She ignores it.) When she turns back to Caleb, he’s holding out a chocolate bar, already unwrapped.

“What’s that for?” she asks.

“You will have a crash,” Caleb says, matter-of-fact. “Sugar helps.”

Beau is suddenly, forcefully, reminded of Dairon; of the fridge-cold bottles of lemonade they’d pass to her after a session; and she thinks her eyes sting for a moment. “Uh, thanks,” she says instead, and takes the chocolate. She chews in silence, watching Caleb. He’s turned back to his satchel, and is now pulling more things out of it: antiseptic, bandages, a white rag that he pours some of the water on, then squeezes out, letting water drop onto his trousers and her floor. He meets her eyes then, and she can tell he’s analysing, he’s got that look in his eyes, that furrow between his eyebrows.

“Beauregard,” he says, levelly, scooting closer to her, “I’m going to put this on your face. Okay?”

Beau looks at him, all scrawny in his fucking omnipresent coat, wanting to dab at her forehead as though she’s sick or something, when she’s _not_ , she’s just fucking angry, and she’s angry just because it makes _sense_ to be, because who fucking wouldn’t be angry, not when—

“Beauregard.”

She blinks, and realises that sometime in her spiral she’d started clenching her fists again, and what remains of the chocolate bar – thankfully still in its wrapper – is cracked into multiple pieces in one hand. As she opens the fist, and Caleb reaches out to take the chocolate away, she realises, yep, she’s definitely shaking. Okay. Cool. Maybe the fucker has a point, and besides—it’s not like it could hurt.

“Yeah, okay, fine,” she manages, and lets her head fall back against the wall once more and her eyes close as Caleb scoots even closer. She can’t see him, but he’s close enough that she can feel one of his knees pressed against her, and she waits, anticipating the cold touch on her forehead.

To her surprise, that’s not quite what happens. Caleb starts talking again, instead. “I am going to wipe down your face first, ja? There’s some, ah, I think it’s mostly sweat but there is blood too, and it is probably uncomfortable.” Beau holds perfectly still as Caleb does exactly as he says, and the cloth is cool and a bit of a relief, even if all she’s thinking is she has _no_ idea how there’s blood on her fucking face. “Hmm,” she hears Caleb say, as the cloth makes its way down to her too-warm neck. “Beauregard, does the back of your head hurt?” She can’t see it, but she can hear the thinking-face he’s making.

“Dunno,” she says, not bothering to open her eyes, because the too-fast thrumming in her chest is starting to settle into something boneless and dazed and unthinking, and she does not want to poke at anything too much.

“Hmm,” Caleb says, again, and this time, one of his hands finds its way to the back of her head, and when he lifts it away from the wall, turns her head, she lets him, even though she could fight. “Yes, okay, there’s some injury here, I’m going to wipe here, okay?”

It takes Beau a moment to realise he’s waiting for an answer. “Yeah, sure,” she says. She keeps her eyes closed. As Caleb takes up the rag again and starts working on the back of her head with one hand – and yeah, _ow_ , she’s definitely done _something_ there – his other hand is scratching, absent-minded, at the shaved-short undercut on the side of her head, like she’s Frumpkin or something. Beau wonders if he even knows he’s doing it. She lets him.

Time gets a little vague then, and it’s really only because Caleb insists on cleaning her up, and doing it so slowly, not because she’s _crashing_ or anything, but—it does get a bit vague, stretching out between Caleb narrating what he’s doing, and the cool cloth on her neck, then her forearms, then finally on her unbandaged knuckles. By the time Caleb gets there, the thinking part of Beau’s brain is starting to, annoyingly, wake up again. She opens her eyes, not entirely willingly, and takes it all in: Caleb has one of her hands in his lap, frowning, and is wiping a bit of gauze down her hand, between her fingers. The gauze is sharp-cold, which tells her he’s doused it in spirit. There’s a dozen scrapes and bruises across her hands that she hadn’t noticed, and they sting at the touch of the spirit, but she doesn’t mind that. She considers telling Caleb to stop – it’s not like any of the cuts are deep enough to be an issue, and if she said something, he _would_ – but he’s very methodical about this all, not really looking at her, just focusing, and there’s a nice rhythm to it all.

She decides to let him be, just for a little bit more, and closes her eyes again. By the time he switches and moves on to her other hand, even more of Beau’s brain is online, and the buzzing-thrumming in her chest seems to have mostly gone, which is—well, it’s good. She breathes in, out, and it feels like it goes deeper than it has in a while, and when she opens her eyes this time, Caleb is looking at her.

“Doing better?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Beau says, and she doesn’t think she’s entirely lying.

Caleb considers her for a moment longer. “You do not seem to be shaking anymore. How is your breathing?”

Beau resists the urge to roll her eyes, and instead breathes in, out, in, out, deeply, to demonstrate. “It’s fine, Caleb, see, no need to fuss.”

“Hmm.” Caleb nods, apparently satisfied, and looks back down at her hands. “They were not wrapped, but do you want me to bandage them, Beauregard?”

Beau doesn’t quite remember _why_ they weren’t wrapped to begin with, whether it was unintentional or intentional stupidity, because there’s a lovely patch of rage-panic-pain-induced blurriness in her memory. “Yeah,” she says instead, pulling her attention away from the blurry patch. “Please, thanks,” she adds after a moment, at the urging of a voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like Fjord’s.

She thinks she notices Caleb’s lips quirk upwards, just slightly, at her attempt at politeness, and then he’s setting aside the gauze and grabbing a long, clean roll of bandage – and gods, the man doesn’t seem to wear a clean coat, but he has gauze and methylated spirits and rolls of clean bandages? What gives? – and starts wrapping around her right arm first, methodical and practiced.

“How’d you get so good at this, anyway?” Beau asks, because now that her brain is functional, the silence feels weird.

Caleb raises an eyebrow. “Wrapping bandages?” In response, he raises one hand, letting the sleeve of his coat slide down to reveal his own, slightly tattered, wrappings.

“No, dumbass, I know about those,” she says, as he turns back to his task. “I mean, y’know.” She pauses, considers the words, as he ties off the first bandage and moves on to her left arm. “Y’know, all of this. Like, the, I don’t know, the water, and the sugar, and the disinfecting—you get me?” It’s the sort of thing Beau is only competent at because of years’ training, and Caleb is definitely not someone who has her skillset.

Caleb looks up, blinks, and then says, deadpan, “Beauregard, in case you had not noticed, I have a fuck ton of trauma.” She’s not quite sure how to respond, and he gives her that half-smile again. “I have practice with most methods of fucking yourself up.”

She has to grin at that, which is probably what he intended, because his smile grows wider. “Fair enough.” After a moment, she adds, “Thanks, by the way. For, uh, y’know, the chocolate, and–”

“Yes, Beauregard, I know,” he says, and she thinks he may be using his soft voice, the kind he usually directs at Frumpkin. “Anytime, ja?” Before she can respond to that, he ties off the bandage, and says, “There, they are both done. Feel all right?"

He lets go of her hand, and she turns both wrists, flexes her knuckles. They still hurt, but less so. The wrappings are done differently from how she usually does them, but they’re clean, and snug, and hold her joints well enough. “Yeah, they’re great, thank you.”

Caleb nods, gives her that half-smile again, and starts collecting up his things, putting them in the satchel. Beau wonders if he’s going to leave, and tries not to think too much about that. As he’s doing this, he says, not looking up at her, “Beauregard, did something cause all this?”

Beau sighs. She’d known the questions would come, but the reprieve had been nice. Besides, after all this time – after all the crap they’ve seen – she knows enough of Caleb’s shit, and she thinks he knows just enough of hers. At least, he seems to—and he’s probably figured out the bits she hasn’t got words for yet. “I dunno, man, what do you think.” Caleb looks up, lets go of the satchel, but doesn’t say anything. Beau sighs again. “Yeah, just—I mean, it wasn’t even that big of a _thing_ , just a fuckin’ message, but–”

“From your father?”

“Yeah, yeah, I mean—it wasn’t like, anything new, or that bad, you know? I just slightly–”

“Beauregard–”

“–slightly fuckin’ lost it, and it’s stupid, but–”

“It is not, Beauregard, listen–”

“–but yeah, that’s what happened, just a fucking text.”

“Beauregard.” When she finally stops talking and looks up, Caleb has moved right up next to her again, his side against the wall, facing her. “It is not stupid,” he says, firmly, and Beau considers arguing, but Caleb is fucking _stubborn_ , and the two of them could argue all day if they wanted to, so she lets him have this.

“Yeah, okay, fine,” she says. “Anyway, that’s what happened.”

Caleb is still looking right at her. “I am sorry,” he says, after a moment. She just nods. “I’m going to hug you now, ja?” Whatever she was expecting him to say, _that_ wasn’t it, but then his worn-soft coat is around her, and he’s pulling her away from the wall and into him. They’ve done this enough now, progressed past their awkward shoulder-hugs and gotten to exhausted-collapse-pile territory now, and Caleb, like the rest of their friends, is familiar in a way Beau doesn’t think anyone else has been familiar for her before. His coat smells like soot and a musty library, and Beau settles into the embrace, letting her head rest on his shoulder. There’s little orange cat hairs scattered across the fabric of the coat. Beau smiles, and thinks, S _ee, Fjord, I can be taught._

“You know,” Caleb says, and as he speaks, his stubble scratches against her shoulder, “How Jester keeps calling Ikithon ridiculous things like icky-thong, or whatever she has decided on now?” His words are slow, measured, but she can’t miss the slight intake of breath before he says the name.

“Yeah?”

“Perhaps, if you like—I can ask her to come up with a similar, ah, nickname for your father.”

Reflexively, Beau’s hands ball into fists, grabbing Caleb’s coat as she does so. She doesn’t know _why_ , but that—it makes her breath catch for a moment and her eyes sting. Whatever it is Caleb is trying to say – that her Dad is a dick? That he deserves a nonsensical and slightly gross nickname? – it’s nothing she hasn’t thought, or even said, herself, but hearing it from someone else feels like something cracking in her chest, something _growing_ , and she wants to cry, and laugh, and fucking _find him_ and punch his stupid fucking face, all at the same time.

“Beauregard?” Caleb’s arms are pressing tighter around her, now. “I am sorry, I didn’t—”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Beau manages, suddenly glad Caleb can’t see her face like this. “I just—I think _Thoreau_ may be harder to work with than _Ikithon_ , y'know?”

Caleb’s hold on her doesn’t loosen, but he chuckles. “Don’t underestimate Jester. I am sure we can figure something out.”

“Yeah,” Beau says, and it’s a bit shaky, and she thinks of all six-and-a-half feet of her Dad being faced with all of them: Jester and her fucking innuendoes, Caduceus and his terrifying calm, Veth and her not-entirely-idle threats of violence, Fjord’s and his smooth-ass charm, Yasha and her… well, all of _her_ , really. Beau breathes out. “Yeah, I think we’ll figure it out.”

**Author's Note:**

> the title of this fic is from _twin size mattress_ by the front bottoms, which I heard on this excellent [empire siblings spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/61kXTUAfrS3uIGX4wJKr6r?si=vhvC8jX7Rz-NIojW1CIZ1A). 
> 
> you can find me yelling about critical role & other things on [tumblr](https://songofwizardry.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I'm a massive fucking fan of both beau and caleb, so maybe this will turn into a loosely-connected series of modern!AU empire sibs drabbles. we'll see. if there's anything you'd like to see, let me know.


End file.
